334 THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE, 



board and the edges of tlie Mve. It can pass through a 

 very small crevice, and as soon as safe from the bees, it 

 will begin to enlarge its cramped tenement, by gnawing 

 mto the solid wood. The time required for the .larvae to 

 break forth into winged insects, varies with the tempera- 

 ture to which they are exposed, and the season of the 

 year when they spin their cocoons.* I have known them 

 to spin and hatch in ten or eleven days ; and they often 

 spin so late in the Fall, as not to emerge until the ensuing 

 Spring, 



The male usually keeps away from the hive, but the 

 female seeks in every way to g^n an entrance. If the 

 stock is weak and discouraged, she lays her eggsf among 



* In Novemiber (1855), I proeured a large number of cocoons for winter obser- 

 vations. From many of them, the moths quickly emerged. In others, the larvte 

 slowly changed into pupse or crysalids ; while, in others still, after being exposed 

 for more than two months to a summer temperature, they remained in the worm 

 state. A few were exposed for six weeks to, a uniform, temperature of over 80°, 

 and only one passed into the winged moth. Some, after being taken out of their 

 cocoons six times, would envelop themselves in a new shroud. 

 . Dr. Dtinhoif says, that the larvse become motionless at a temperature of from 38° 

 to 40% and entirely torpid at a lower temperature. A number which he left all 

 Winter in his summer-house, revived in the Spring, and passed through their 

 natural changes. He appears to have been more successful than myself in induc- 

 ing them to develop in Winter, by artificial heat; but this may be owing to the 

 fact that he experimented with larvae which greedily ate the food given to them, 

 and not as I did, with worms which had spun their cocoons. Further experi- 

 ments are needed, iu order to determine whether dilatory development is peculiar 

 to those reaching maturity late in the Fall,' or is caused by the sudden cTiech 

 g^ven by cold weather. 



" If; when the thermometer stood at lO**, I dissected a chrysalis, it was not frozen, 

 but congealed immediately afterwdrds. This shows that, at so low a temperature, 

 the vital force is sufficient to resist frost. In the hive, the chrysalids and larvae, in 

 various stages of development, pass the Winter in a state of torpor, in corners and 

 crevices, and among the waste on the bottom-boards. In March or April, they 

 revive, and the bees of strong colonies commence operations for dislodging them." 



— DONUOFF. 



Some larvae which I exposed to a temperature of 6° below zero, froze solid, and 

 never revived. Others, after remaining for 8 hours in a temperature of about 12°, 

 seemed, after reviving, to remain for weeks in a crippled condition. 



t "The eggs of the bee-moth (see Plate XIII., Fig. 44) are perfectly round, and 

 very small, being only about one-3ighth of a line in diameter. In the ducts of the 

 ovarium, they, are ranged togethei in the form of a rosary. They are not developed 



